Re: request

[Yoshie Furuhashi <furuhashi.1@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

>Does anyone know of short and clear articles on U.S. slavery and on
>reparations?  I want to use them in my upcoming prison class.  Thanks.
>
>Michael Yates

At 11:25 PM -0400 6/8/00, Art McGee wrote:
>Date: Thu, 8 Jun 2000 23:25:35 -0400
>From: Art McGee <amcgee@xxxxxxx>
>Subject: [BRC-ANN] Legal Basis of the Claim for Reparations
>
>TITLE:
>
>The Legal Basis of the Claim for Reparations
>
>AUTHOR:
>
>Lord Anthony Gifford,
>British Queens Counsel and Jamaican Attorney-at-Law
>
>LOCATION:
>
>http://www.arm.arc.co.uk/legalbasis.html
>
>DESCRIPTION:
>
>A paper Presented to the First Pan-African Congress on
>Reparations, Abuja, Federal Republic of Nigeria, April
>27-29, 1993.
>
>-30-

At 2:34 AM -0500 2/6/00, Randall Robinson wrote:
>Date: Sun, 6 Feb 2000 02:34:30 -0500
>From: Randall Robinson <rrobinson@xxxxxxxxxxx>
>Subject: [BRC-NEWS] Legal Arguments in Support of Reparations
>
>http://www.thedebt.net/legal.shtml
>
>Legal Arguments in Support of Reparations
>
>1. Many Billions Gone: Is It Time to Reconsider the
>   Case for Black Reparations?" (excerpt)
>
>   by Robert Westley <rwestley@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
>   Associate Professor, Tulane University Law School
>
>Compensation to Blacks for the injustices suffered by them
>must first and foremost be monetary. It must be sufficient
>to indicate that the United States truly wishes to make
>Blacks whole for the losses they have endured. Sufficient,
>in other words, to reflect not only the extent of unjust
>Black suffering, but also the need for Black economic
>independence from societal discrimination. No less than with
>the freedmen, freedom for Black people today means economic
>freedom and security. A basis for that freedom and security
>can be assured through group reparations in the form of
>monetary compensation, along with free provision of goods
>and services to Black communities across the nation. The
>guiding principle of reparations must be self-determination
>in every sphere of life in which Blacks are currently
>dependent.
>
>To this end, a private trust should be established for the
>benefit of all Black Americans. The trust should be
>administered by trustees popularly elected by the intended
>beneficiaries of the trust. The trust should be financed by
>funds drawn annually from the general revenue of the United
>States for a period not to exceed ten years. The trust funds
>should be expendable on any project or pursuit aimed at the
>educational and economic empowerment of the trust
>beneficiaries to be determined on the basis of need. Any
>trust beneficiary should have the right to submit proposals
>to the trustees for the expenditure of trust funds.
>
>The above is only a suggestion about how to use group
>reparations for the benefit of Blacks as a whole. In the
>end, determining a method by which all Black people can
>participate in their own empowerment will require a much
>more refined instrument than it would be appropriate for me
>to attempt to describe here. My own beliefs about what
>institutions Black people need most certainly will not
>reflect the views of all Black people, just as my belief
>that individual compensation is not the best way to proceed
>probably does not place me in the majority. Everybody who
>could just get a check has many reasons to believe that it
>would be best to get a check. On this point, I must
>subscribe to the wisdom that holds, if you give a man a
>loaf, you feed him for a day. It is for those Blacks who
>survive on a "breadconcern level" that the demand for
>reparations assumes its greatest importance.
>
>Citation: Westley, Robert. "Many Billions Gone: Is It Time
>to Reconsider the Case for Black Reparations?". Boston
>College Law Review, December 1998, Volume XL, Number 1.
>
>--
>
>2. If the Shoe Fits, Wear It: An Analysis of Reparations to
>   African Americans (excerpt)
>
>   by Vincene Verdun <Verdun.1@xxxxxxx>
>   Associate Professor, Ohio State University College of Law
>
>This almost constant plea for reparations over the past one
>hundred and thirty years appears mysterious and even
>irrational from the perspective of many Americans. The
>perception among many that reparations are threatening or
>ineffective is revealed in a number of contradictory
>arguments, for example: 1) reparations are unlikely ever to
>be awarded, after all, no relief has been given for the past
>one hundred and thirty years; 2) reparations are undeserved
>by African Americans since all ex-slaves have been dead for
>at least a generation; 3) white Americans living today have
>not injured African Americans and should not be required to
>pay for the sins of their slavemaster forbearers; 4) it is
>impossible to determine who should get what and how much;
>and 5) African Americans must become self-reliant and
>determine their own fate and stop waiting for relief from
>external sources. Opponents of reparations to African
>Americans are so overwhelmingly entrenched in the rightness
>of their position that they conceptualize the cry for
>reparations as frivolous, meritless, and divisive.
>
>However, the reparations movement cannot be easily dismissed
>or discredited, in part because so many of its supporters
>are part of the American mainstream. For the same reason,
>the movement cannot be classified as radical or extremist. A
>movement that has been sustained through several generations
>and that has won the support of knowledgeable and reputable
>people throughout history, including members of Congress,
>business people, professionals, academicians, attorneys,
>educators, and other hard working people cannot be dismissed
>as frivolous. Proponents of reparations pursue their cause
>with fervor equivalent to that of its opponents and stand
>firm in their assertion that the reparations given to Jews
>by Germany, and to Native Americans and Japanese Americans
>by the United States, set precedents for the payment of
>reparations to African Americans. The moral basis for
>reparations is simply stated: 1) slaves were not paid for
>their labor for more than two hundred and sixty-five years,
>thereby depriving the descendants of slaves of their
>inheritance; the descendants of the slavemasters inherited
>the benefit derived from slave labor, which properly
>belonged to the descendants of slaves; 2) the United States
>Government promised ex-slaves forty acres and a mule and did
>not make good on that promise; and 3) systematic and
>government-sanctioned economic and racial oppression since
>the abolition of slavery impeded and interfered with the
>self-determination of African Americans and excluded them
>from sharing in the growth and prosperity of the nation.
>
>Unfortunately, the proponents and opponents of reparations
>maintain diametrically opposed points of view, and both
>groups are deeply entrenched in the correctness of their
>beliefs. Reasonable people may differ on any topic, but when
>two groups of people from the same society assume such polar
>positions on an issue, the foundation of such opposition is
>usually traceable to some basic normative difference. For
>example, the underlying normative difference in the abortion
>debate between pro-choice and pro-life advocates is the
>belief by pro-life advocates that abortion is sinful or
>wrong - a belief that is usually grounded in religious or
>biblical principles so deeply imbedded in the perception of
>the believer that there is no room for compromise.
>Pro-choice advocates, who do not perceive abortion as a sin
>or wrong and who do not share the beliefs of the pro-life
>advocates, stand firm in their protection of the rights of
>individuals to make their own decisions.
>
>Likewise, opponents and proponents of reparations approach
>the issue of reparations from two distinct perspectives that
>are based on differences in the beliefs imbedded in the
>perception of each group. Opponents of reparations, who are
>usually white, frequently approach the issue of reparations
>from the dominant perspective - a system of values and
>perceptions common to the group that exercises economic,
>political, and ideological control over society. Proponents
>of reparations, most often African Americans, evaluate
>reparations on the basis of a consciousness - the African-
>American consciousness - spawned from generations of
>survival as an oppressed people in a hostile environment
>and rooted in the heritage of the African culture, which
>survived the trip across the Atlantic Ocean and the
>institution of slavery. The differences in these two
>value systems and the perspectives they engender form the
>foundation for the polarity between opponents and proponents
>of reparations.
>
>Citation: Verdun, Vincene. "If the Shoe Fits, Wear It: An
>Analysis of Reparations to African Americans". Tulane Law
>Review, February 1993, Volume 67, Number 3, p. 607-610.
>
>-30-


At 8:10 AM -0500 12/29/99, Art McGee wrote:
>Date: Wed, 29 Dec 1999 08:10:59 -0500
>From: Art McGee <amcgee@xxxxxxx>
>Subject: [BRC-NEWS] The Legal Basis for the African Reparations Claim
>X-WWW-Site: http://www.blackradicalcongress.org/
>
>http://www.africasia.com/icpubs/na/dec99/nacs1204.htm
>
>New African
>
>December 1999
>
>For Whom the Bell Tolls:
>The Legal Basis for the African Reparations Claim
>
>In April 1993, the British lawyer Lord Anthony Gifford (a
>Queens Counsel) who now lives in Jamaica with his Jamaican
>wife, presented a paper on the legal basis for the African
>slavery reparations claim at the first ever conference on
>the subject held in Abuja, Nigeria.
>
>The conference was organised by the late Chief M.K.O Abiola,
>the president Nigeria never had.
>
>Lord Gifford himself is an enigma of sorts. His photo graced
>the cover of our last month's issue. How we got it is a
>story itself.
>
>Because of the causes he champions, Lord Gifford appears to
>be disliked by his own people. Last month, we combed the
>whole of London trying to get an up-to-date photo of him.
>Not even the House of Lords press office had one.
>
>We tried the other big photo agencies -Reuters, Associated
>Press, the Press Association - none of them had a photo of
>the Lord who served in the House of Lords for many years,
>not even a file photo.
>
>The House of Lords press office kindly referred us to the
>relatively smaller Universal Pictorial Press & Agency, but
>what they had was a 1987 (repeat 1987) photo of him, and we
>couldn't use it.
>
>We were finally rescued by Ian Hall, president of the
>Bloomsbury International Society, whose wife, Rahda
>Williams, had taken a photo of Lord Gifford at an event in
>London in 1998. That is the measure of the man who has
>become the foremost white supporter of the African
>reparations cause.
>
>Below is his legal basis for the African slavery reparations
>claim...
>
>"I am a lawyer who has striven for human rights and justice
>in many parts of the world. Much of my work has concerned
>the manifold injustices which are caused by the evil of
>racism. Especially, I have stood in solidarity with black
>people in Britain in their bitter and continuing struggle
>for equal rights, and with the liberation movements of
>Mozambique, Angola, Guinea-Bissau, Zimbabwe, Namibia and
>South Africa, in the still unfinished cause of complete
>African liberation. I now live and practice law in Jamaica.
>
>I believe that the cause of reparations to Africa and
>Africans in the diaspora is rooted in fundamental justice -
>a justice which over-arches every struggle and campaign
>which African people have waged to assert their human
>dignity.
>
>For the iniquities perpetrated against African people today
>- whether in South Africa by the apartheid regime, in
>Mozambique and Angola by terrorist forms of destabilisation,
>in Britain and the USA by racist attacks and by systems of
>discrimination - are the continuing consequences, the
>damages as lawyers would say, flowing from the 400-year-long
>atrocity of the slave system.
>
>For me as a lawyer, it is essential to locate the claim for
>reparations within a framework of law and justice.
>
>If this were merely an appeal to the conscience of the white
>world, it would be misconceived. For while there have been
>many committed individuals and movements of solidarity in
>the white world, its political and economic power centres
>have evidenced a ruthless lack of conscience when it comes
>to black and African peoples.
>
>But in my experience progress has been made when the powers
>that rule in the white world have been compelled to
>recognise that the rights of non-white peoples are founded
>in justice. It is then that forms of legal redress, which
>may not have existed before, have been devised.
>
>For example, it used to be perfectly legal in Britain, only
>25 years ago, for landlords or employers to put up notices
>which said "VACANCIES - NO COLOUREDS". Today any employer
>who discriminates on racial grounds can be required by a
>tribunal to pay compensation.
>
>At an intentional level, apartheid in South Africa used to
>be regarded as an internal affair, however regrettable. But
>over the years apartheid became recognised as a crime
>against humanity and a threat to peace, so that
>international sanctions could be imposed.
>
>This is not to say that the achievement of legal sanctions
>brings automatic justice. This has not happened either in
>Britain or South Africa. But these examples show that the
>demand for justice and legality is an essential element in
>the struggle for a just cause.
>
>So it is with the claim for reparations. Indeed, once you
>accept, as I do, the truth of three propositions:
>
>- that the mass kidnap and enslavement of Africans was the
>  most wicked criminal enterprise in recorded human history;
>
>- that no compensation was ever paid by any of the
>  perpetrators to any of the sufferers;
>
>- that the consequences of the crime continue to be massive,
>  both in terms of the enrichment of the descendants of the
>  perpetrators, and in terms of the impoverishment of Africa
>  and the descendants of Africans, then the justice of the
>  claim for reparations is proved beyond reasonable doubt.
>
>Those who may say that, that is all very true in theory but
>that in practice there is no mechanism to enforce the claim,
>or no willingness of the white world to recognise it, I
>would answer with a Latin legal maxim: ubi jus, ibi
>remedium: "where there is a right, there must be a remedy".
>
>An injustice without a remedy is abhorred by nature. Once
>the claim is well-founded in legal principle, and well-
>recognised by the international community, remedies and
>mechanisms will be found.
>
>Even so, given the unique, massive and multi-faceted nature
>of the claim, international jurists will be needed who can
>show corresponding creativity and imagination.
>
>International law has never been static. New structures have
>often been devised to give effect to recognised principles.
>The Nuremberg War Crimes Tribunal is an example of new legal
>thinking which brought a measure of justice following the
>atrocities of Nazism. The International Court of Justice,
>where states could settle disputes with each other by law
>rather than by war, was unknown at the start of this
>century.
>
>This paper is an attempt to conceptualise a legal framework
>for the formulation and prosecution of the claim for
>reparations.
>
>It is argued by reference to seven fundamental propositions.
>
>The charter of the Nuremberg Tribunal defined crimes against
>humanity in these words:
>
>"Murder, extermination, enslavement, deportation, and other
>inhumane acts committed against any civilian population....
>whether or not in violation of the domestic law of the
>country here perpetrated."
>
>The charter also gave jurisdiction to the Tribunal to try
>crimes against peace ("planning, preparation, initiation or
>waging of a war of aggression..."), and War Crimes
>("violation of the laws and customs of war... including
>murder, ill-treatment, or deportation to slave labour or for
>any other purpose of civilian population of, or in, an
>occupied territory...")
>
>It is considered by international lawyers that the Nuremberg
>Charter did not create new law, but declared and confirmed
>concepts of international criminality which had been
>accepted over centuries. As D.P. O'Connell puts it:
>
>"The tribunal found that acts so reprehensible as to offend
>the conscience of mankind, directed against civilian
>populations, are crimes in international law".
>
>In 1948, the United Nations promoted the Convention of the
>Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. It has
>been ratified by most countries in the world. Again, the
>Convention has given a new legal form to an old concept in
>international law. The preamble to the Convention recognised
>that "genocide is a crime against international law", and
>that "at all periods of history genocide has inflicted great
>losses on humanity. Genocide was defined as:
>
>"Any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy,
>in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious
>group, as such:
>
>- Killing members of the group;
>
>- Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the
>  group;
>
>- Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life
>  calculated to bring about its physical destruction in
>  whole or in part..."
>
>Historians and their experts can show without difficulty
>how the invasion of African territories, the mass capture
>of Africans, the horrors of the middle passage, the
>"chattelisation" of Africans in the Americas, the
>extermination of the language and culture of the transported
>Africans, constituted violations of all these international
>laws.
>
>The argument that such crimes were "legal" under European
>law, and accepted as normal by most Europeans, would be
>unavailing.
>
>Europeans did not, then or now, constitute all mankind, and
>the conscience of all decent mankind must always have been
>outraged by the atrocities which Europeans inflicted on
>Africans over 400 years. Indeed it can be said that it was
>the ultimate crime against humanity, to deny human status to
>a vast section of humankind.
>
>The right to reparation is well recognised in international
>law. It has been defined by the Permanent Court of
>International Justice (the predecessor of the International
>Court of Justice) in these terms:
>
>"The essential principle contained in the actual notion of
>an illegal act - a principle which seems to be established
>by international practice and in particular by the decisions
>of arbitral tribunals - is that reparation must, as far as
>possible, wipe out all the consequences of the illegal act
>and re-establish the situation which would, in all
>probability, have existed if that act had not been
>committed.
>
>"Restitution in kind or, if this is not possible, payment of
>a sum corresponding to the value which a restitution in kind
>would bear; the award, if need be, of damages for loss
>sustained which would not be covered by restitution in kind
>or payment in place of it - such are the principles which
>should serve to determine the amount of compensation due for
>an act contrary to international law."
>
>The leading textbook on international law by Schwarzenberge
>described the recognition of the right to reparation as a
>process:
>
>"International judicial institutions have slowly groped
>their way towards the articulate formulation of the rule
>that the commission of an international tort (wrong) entails
>the duty to make reparations."
>
>Most of the case law on reparations concerns the
>compensation for specific losses such as the destruction of
>property, buildings, ships etc. But the principle is just as
>valid in the case of illegal actions on a larger scale which
>affect whole peoples. Indeed there are direct precedents for
>the payment of reparations in such cases:
>
>- In 1952, Germany reached agreement with Israel for the
>  payment of $222m, following a claim by Israel which was
>  limited to the costs of resettling 500,000 Jews who had
>  fled from Nazi controlled countries. Much later, in 1990,
>  Austria made payments totalling $25m to survivors of the
>  Jewish holocaust.
>
>- A number of agreements have been made under the British
>  Foreign Compensation Act of 1950; lump sum settlements
>  were made by Bulgaria, Poland, Hungary, Egypt and Romania,
>  and a tribunal was set up to make awards from the sums
>  made available, so as to do justice to thousands of
>  claimants whose property had been expropriated. A US-Iran
>  Claims Tribunal was set up in 1981 for a similar purpose.
>
>- Japan has made reparation payments to South Korea for acts
>  committed during the period of invasion and occupation of
>  Korea by Japan. Most recently, the United Nations Security
>  Council has passed a resolution, binding in international
>  law, requiring Iraq to pay reparations for its invasion of
>  Kuwait.
>
>It is therefore clear that the concept of reparations is
>firmly established and actively pursued by states, on behalf
>of their injured nationals, against other wrongdoing states.
>
>In addition, one can identify a second category of
>reparations which is of great relevance. This is where a
>state has accepted the responsibility to make restitution,
>not just to other states, but to groups of people within its
>own borders whose rights had been violated.
>
>In 1988 the United States Congress passed the Civil
>Liberties Act, which was designed to make restitution to
>Japanese-Americans in respect of losses brought about by
>"any discriminatory act of the US government...based upon
>the individual Japanese ancestry during the wartime period
>when Japanese Americans were interned in great numbers. A
>commission was set up to investigate claims. A total of $1.2
>billion, or about $20,000 for each claimant, was paid. The
>Act began by stating the basis for reparations in clear
>terms which could be applied with the greatest relevance to
>the claims of African peoples:
>
>"The purposes of this Act are to:
>
>- Acknowledge the fundamental injustice of the evacuation,
>  relocation and internment of US citizens and permanent
>  resident aliens of Japanese ancestry during World War II;
>
>- Apologise on behalf of the people of the US;
>
>- Make restitution to those individuals of Japanese ancestry
>  who were interned...
>
>- Make more credible and sincere any declaration of concern
>  by the US over violations of human rights committed by
>  other nations."
>
>Some steps have been taken to recognise the rights to
>restitution of indigenous peoples whose land was plundered
>and occupied, and whose people were decimated, especially in
>the United States, Canada, and Australia. Each of these
>countries have made land rights settlements and/or financial
>payments to indigenous peoples.
>
>These are woefully inadequate gestures, given the atrocities
>committed in those countries against indigenous peoples. But
>they represent some recognition that the surviving
>generations of indigenous peoples have the right to a
>measure of reparation for the crimes committed against their
>ancestors.
>
>Whether the descendants of the immediate victims of a crime
>have a right to reparations, will depend on the nature of
>the claim being made. The US payments to Japanese Americans
>were aimed at making restitution for the suffering of those
>actually interned.
>
>The Austrian payment was to survivors of the concentration
>camps, again to make reparation for the physical and mental
>agony of the concentration camps. If a victim died before
>the claim were agreed, his claim died with him, since the
>pain and suffering were personal to him.
>
>But there are many cases where the consequences of the crime
>committed are visited upon descendants. Where property has
>been expropriated, the loss is suffered not merely by the
>then owner, but also by his descendants who have lost an
>inheritance which would otherwise have been theirs.
>
>In such cases, international law gives a remedy, even if the
>claimant was not born at the time of the expropriation.
>
>For example, the order made under the British Foreign
>Compensation Act of 1950 provided that the Foreign
>Compensation Commission should treat as established any
>claim relating to certain property in Egypt which had been
>sequestrated by the Nasser government if the applicant was
>the owner "or is the successor in title of such owner",
>making it plain that the children and the grandchildren of
>the original dispossessed owners were entitled to claim.
>
>More recently, since the unification of Germany, claims have
>been pressed successfully by the sons and daughters of
>property owners whose lands were seized after the German
>Democratic Republic was set up. No one doubts their right to
>claim, even though they may have been children, or even
>unborn, when their families' land were taken over.
>
>Claims have been made not only by descendants, but by the
>nation state which has had to bear the burden of paying for
>the consequences of the crime. As noted above, Israel
>successfully claimed reparations from West Germany for the
>costs of resettling Jewish refugees - even though the state
>of Israel did not exist at the time when the Nazi regime
>committed its crimes against the Jews.
>
>It is also significant that West Germany, which felt obliged
>to meet the claim, was also a different state, territorially
>as well as politically, from the German Reich which was
>responsible for the atrocities.
>
>In principle, therefore, the passage of time since slavery
>ended is no barrier to the claim of African peoples,
>provided that it can be proved that the consequences of the
>crime of slavery continue to manifest themselves to the
>prejudice of Africans now living in Africa and the Diaspora.
>
>On this point, the evidence of historical experts is clear
>and unequivocal.
>
>On the African continent, flourishing civilisations were
>destroyed; ordered systems of government were mashed up;
>millions of citizens were forcibly removed and a pattern of
>poverty and underdevelopment directly resulted, which now
>affects nearly every resident of Black Africa.
>
>In the Americas, the slavery system gave rise to poverty,
>landlessness, underdevelopment, as well as to the crushing
>of culture and language, the loss of identity, the
>inculcation of inferiority among Black people, and the
>indoctrination of whites into a racist mindset - all of
>which continue to this day to affect the prospects and
>quality of black people's lives in the Caribbean, USA,
>Canada and Europe.
>
>While there is no limitation period in international law,
>unreasonable delay could be a reason for refusing a claim. A
>state which had a just claim, but which failed to advance it
>over a long period, could be held to have acquiesced in the
>wrong or to have waived its right to claim reparations.
>
>However, no objection along these lines could properly be
>made against the claim of Africa and Africans in the
>Diaspora.
>
>In the case of Africa and the Caribbean region, the period
>of slavery and the slave trade was followed by the period of
>colonialism. It can be argued that colonialism itself was a
>crime in international law, for it was a usurpation, imposed
>by force, of the rights of the colonised peoples to their
>sovereignty. It was at the very least a crime against peace,
>and in most, if not all, colonised territories, crimes
>against humanity were frequently committed.
>
>In the case of the United States, former slaves were
>subjected to a system of exclusion, separate development,
>racial persecution, civil rights denials and ghettoisation,
>which has only in part been overcome in the recent years
>following the civil rights movement.
>
>The important point is that African peoples, until recently,
>had no independent voice, nor even any status in the world
>community. How could the people of, say, Ghana or Jamaica
>make a claim for reparations when their countries were
>considered to be an "overseas possession" of the very
>country whose people had kidnapped and enslaved their
>ancestors?
>
>Still less were African-Americans as they struggled for the
>right to be recognised as citizens, in any position to make
>any claims - even if there was any international forum in
>which a claim could be brought, which there was not.
>
>Even after the independence of African nations from
>colonialism, the shackles of neo-colonialism have fettered
>the power of African governments to speak with any real
>independence against their former conquerors. It is by no
>means unreasonable or surprising that it has taken some 30
>years [now 40 years] since formal independence for a claim
>for reparations to be voiced.
>
>Indeed I would argue that now, as never before, is the right
>time for this claim to be made, as African leaders are
>speaking with a new confidence and operating in new
>democratic structures.
>
>So far I have been dealing with the legal basis for the
>reparations claim. The last four sections deal with
>questions which a legal analyst is bound to raise, however
>difficult it is to answer them:
>
>- Who are to be the plaintiffs or claimants for reparations?
>
>- Who are to be the defendants against whom the claim is made?
>
>- What are the damages to be claimed?
>
>- In what court is the claim to be made?
>
>Here we sail into uncharted waters, since no claim for
>reparations of this magnitude has ever been brought.
>Hundreds of millions of people, in different continents of
>the world, have an interest in this claim. Their losses may
>seem almost impossible to quantify. Some minds are so
>daunted by the practical problems involved that they say the
>claim is unrealistic.
>
>I do not hold any such defeatist view. Once the first three
>propositions are accepted as valid, and the right to
>reparations is seen to be soundly established in
>international law, then ways of doing justice can and will
>be found. Difficulties of scale or procedure should not be
>obstacles to justice. The unwillingness of the white world
>to consider the claim is not a reason for giving it up, but
>rather a spur to mobilising awareness and support around the
>issue.
>
>However, in addressing these questions I seek to identify
>the principles involved, rather than to furnish precise
>answers, which can only be developed over time and
>experience, and after deep study.
>
>Copyright (c) IC Publications Limited 1999. All rights reserved.
>
>
>
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Yoshie